The original choice of title was not made lightly, says Psychologist-Editor James McConnell, who heads the University of Michigan planarian (flatworm) research group, which .
McConnell works with planaria, or flatworms, conditioning them by electrical shock to contract when a light is flashed.
Because, says Ardrey, the dispossessed planarian worm lost his zest for life and slipped this attitude into the evolutionary stream untold millions of years ago.